Episode 72 – Navigating Authenticity and Distortion (JEZEBEL)
Gabrielle Martin: Hello and welcome to Push Play, a Push Festival podcast featuring conversations with artists who are pushing boundaries and playing with form. I’m Gabrielle Martin, Push’s artistic director, and today’s episode dives into stylized bodies, slowed down vocabularies, and the high voltage tension between authenticity, caricature, and the gaze.
Today, Chipo Chipaziwa, Push’s in-dialogue coordinator and curatorial assistant, speaks with Cherish Menzo. You may remember her from 2024 Push performances of Dark Matter, but it’s okay if you missed that because she’s back for the festival with Jezebel, which she choreographed and performs in, and this is being presented at the Push Festival January 22nd to 23rd, 2026.
Through physical performance, hip hop visual language, and the slow distorted flow of chopped and screwed sound, Jezebel reclaims the hypersexualized video vixen of hip hop’s golden age. Once framed through a male gaze that fetishized and vilified Black femininity, she now stretches the image until its artifice becomes her authorship.
What emerges is a portrait of a woman both muse and maker, unapologetic and self-possessed. Cherish Menzo, born 1988, is an Amsterdam and Brussels-based choreographer and performer whose work explores bodily transformation through distortion, decay, and dissonance. Known for her powerful movement language, she has created internationally touring works, including Jezebel, Dark Matter, and Frank, and has collaborated with leading artists such as Leo Leris, Jan Martens, Esther Salomon, Lisbeth Gruwez, and Akram Khan.
Through her performances, Cherish investigates and unsettles familiar physical and cultural images, reshaping them into uncanny and speculative forms. Chipo Chipaziwa, born 1997, is a performance artist exploring power dynamics between performer and audience. A BA graduate of UBC 2019, she has presented work internationally and nationally, including at Index Sweden, Art Metropol Toronto, and Western Front Vancouver.
Her artist book, My Mother, My Home, was published by Archive Books in 2024. Here is Chipo’s conversation with Cherish.
Chipo Chipaziwa: Hi, Cherish. Hello. How are you? Oh, sorry, just even before we begin our conversation, I would like to acknowledge that I am joining, joining from the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations, colonially known as Vancouver. And today, Cherish, you are joining from the Netherlands, yes?
Cherish Menzo: Yes.
Chipo Chipaziwa: Awesome. How are you this morning?
Cherish Menzo: Uh, yeah, for you this morning and for me this evening. Oh. Yeah. No, but I love that, this feeling of like, ah, yes, somewhere I am in the morning. Uh, I’m doing well. Thank you. Yes, how are you?
Chipo Chipaziwa: I’m doing well. I’m really excited to talk to you about Jezebel.
Cherish Menzo: Likewise.
Chipo Chipaziwa: Yeah. So I guess my first question for you is can you walk me through how you developed this work?
Cherish Menzo: Uh, yes. Wow. Having to go years back. Um, uh, I’ve been performing a lot for other choreographers internationally, uh, and which gained a lot of, um, yeah, information in regards of embodiment, uh, how to approach dance, the relation, uh, of the performer and the audience. Um, and I guess there was a, um, yeah, uh, specific questions around representation in relation to my body that I wanted to further, um, investigate.
Uh, and immediately with that desire, I felt like questions about, um, yeah, a lot of resources that I, that I, that I have from the media. I love to … I loved because I don’t watch them so much anymore, but music video clips. Um- Yeah … and so really, like, yeah, questions around, like, how does our visual, um, culture shape someone and deals with this aspect of representation?
Um, which then pushed me to look back into my teenage years where I was hooked on the television, looking a lot at MTV- Mm-hmm … and other music, uh, channels, TMF and The Box, uh, here in the Netherlands. Um, and- Yeah, specifically the, the representation of the Black woman or Black womanhood- Mm-hmm … um, in the sort of visual culture.
Uh, and I have to maybe specify in Western Europe, um, ’cause also how, where I situate myself geographically, um, says a lot about what then is presented. Um- Mm-hmm … but yeah, I, I wanted to, to investigate how that interacts with who I am as a person, my identity, and also who I am on stage. Um, so … And also feeling that, uh, ’cause Jezebel has been created in 2019, and in the early stages of the research, questioning a lot, uh, uh, the visual representation of, of, of Black women at that specific time and where I feel like, ah, Nicki Minaj, um- Mm-hmm
Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, uh, being very present. And having some questions about,
um, sexual, sexuality and hypersexuality, um, in image and also in language, uh, and how that relates back to these teenage years. So that started this investigation about the hypersexualization, uh, of the Black women in visual culture. Uh, and where specific figures such as the video vixens came about, and trying to understand how that then relates with my own idea of, uh, representation, performativity, desire.
Mm-hmm. Um, yeah.
Chipo Chipaziwa: Wow, yeah. Because I, you know, I had the chance to watch this show beforehand. Mm-hmm. And it opens up with this black-blue lighting, chopped and screwed music playing in the background. Yes. And I do see that the performativity that you’re talking about, you know, like you’re playing with hyper-feminine aesthetics such as long acrylic nails, a fur coat, and grills.
And I was just wondering if you could further talk about how you’re using these elements to play at the juxtaposition of beauty and grotesque. Hmm.
Cherish Menzo: Yeah, thank you for that question. Um, I guess the first attempt was to work with elements that, uh- as viewers and with our gaze are collectively recognizable.
Um, but then enlarging them or bringing some distortion to them that makes us question, uh, our idea and our associations with these, these elements. Um, and so for, yeah, maybe at first it’s, uh, someone wearing a fur coat, long acrylic nails, but because of them being so long in relation with the fur coat, does it, uh, uh, produce other images?
Mm-hmm. Um, and how to play with that friction of this recognizability, and then where is the tilting point where something, um, yeah, really saturating almost a stereotype. And by doing so, does it then spill over into another suggestion?
Chipo Chipaziwa: Just, like, thinking about the gaze within this work, you know, ’cause I am also a performance artist as well.
And something that I think about is how my work explores the nuance in self-identity and this negotiation between the performance and… that I’m creating and how they’re consumed by the audiences. Mm-hmm. And I was just wondering, like, do you think about the audience in your practice? And if so, how do you, and who are you hoping to address through the work of jezebel?
Cherish Menzo: Uh, the… Yeah, the audience is very important in my practice. And, uh, I feel like with jezebel- Uh, it was the first spark of, of, um, wanting to bring that importance of that dialogue, uh, the dissonance, the, the negotiations, as you mentioned, that come about, uh, in relation to, yeah, when audience members and the performers meet each other in a specific context.
Um, and where the spectator is not just spectating, but has to, yeah, even though perhaps in Jezebel being seated, uh, can be moved and, and can question the conventions that we share. Um, and I feel that with Jezebel, especially because of recognizing that a lot, um, growing up in the Netherlands, there’s a lot of information coming from the United States.
Mm-hmm. So also in regards of how, um, I identified with my Blackness, um, and this, the, the representations that I would see on television or in magazines ha- have come a lot from the United States. So that was also an interesting, yeah, again, like, uh, friction in a sense, but also in a com- a consumption of my own.
Um- Yeah … feeling more that relation with the United States, how distorted it might have been, um, in regards to my relation with my real close lineage with Suriname, for example. Um- Mm-hmm … and in that sense of what I had consumed and also to, to build my own identity and, and the, the frictions and the contradictions it comes with.
Um, then of course, going on stage, bringing all these elements and these questions together, and that, for that to take form, I started to feel a big responsibility in regards of like, yeah, but who, uh, relates to this? Who relates to these images? Um, and how to take care to not misrepresent. That became a very strong, uh, aspect w- in within the, the creation of Jezebel, and especially moving towards the premiere or the first presentations, um, I felt, uh- Yeah, it felt quite heavy to think of like, ah, I want to really take care that I do not misrepresent anyone.
Um- Mm-hmm … and I think that comes because of certain stories or images, um, not being enough, uh, presented within the black box. Um, or at least where I felt at that moment that I was at. Um, so then yeah, you become all of a sudden, um, or you- I felt that, uh, uh, I was becoming a s- a, a, a, a speaking channel for many, whilst do I have the consensus of those many?
Um- Yeah … become a mirror for many, but do I have the consensus from those many by creating this mirror? So also the understanding of like, yeah, when we create image, when we create form, um, what is the power of that? And how can it completely, um Yeah, push people aside or misrepresent someone, and that for me became a very, yeah, uh, dense and heavy aspect in regards of, like,
Chipo Chipaziwa: being a performer, going on stage, but working with these specific elements for Jezebel.
Yeah, I can’t even imagine just, like, kind of the burden of representation and how, like, you know, being Black in the Netherlands is undoubtedly so different than being Black in the States.
Chipo Chipaziwa: Um, and something that I’ve been thinking about as well is that, you know, this is a touring work- Yes … and I was just wondering, how has the work changed from the first time you performed it to, like, current day, and especially, you know, you debuted it in Europe, and now you’ll be with us soon here in Vancouver?
Cherish Menzo: I, I think there are several aspects that make me question a lot about, like, ah, yeah, uh, performing Jezebel again. It’s one, uh, Jezebel is part of a trilogy of- in which Jezebel is the first work, but the trilogy does not consist out of a, a chronological storytelling, but where I do realize, like, I add the aspect of representation, representational forms, uh, what do we consider as the familiar, and implementing distortion to that.
How does that create, like, um, yeah, this disruption in i- in our ideas of the reality and how we see one another, um, and what is the power of the gaze, especially within that? Um, so now having premiered the, the third work, uh, last May, it’s nice to have this, to have this retrospective, uh, yeah, view on Jezebel, an understanding of like, and now after Frank, where does Jezebel stand?
Mm-hmm. Uh, sometimes almost feeling a, a little itch of like, do I want to, to change drastic things of Jezebel because I am… How, how old was I back then? I don’t know, 32 or something. I’m not 32 anymore. Do I think differently about, um, what I thought about back then during the creation? I really also felt like, ah, it’s showing the back of my tongue.
Uh, and now I’m not showing the back of my tongue when I will perform Jezebel, uh, in Vancouver, but more I feel diving into the nuances of like, ah, yeah, how also within time and in society things, narratives change. Uh, how do I relate to the work then now? Um, so that I find quite exciting and scary
Chipo Chipaziwa: Yeah
dive
Cherish Menzo: into. Um, and I had the, the pleasure to present, uh, Jezebel in 2000, I believe 2023 in Montreal, and where it was already of like, ah, yeah, wow, what will this mean to, to not present the work in Europe, uh-
Chipo Chipaziwa: Yeah …
Cherish Menzo: but in North America. Uh, and it’s been… Yeah, I mean, once again, coming back to this relation of the audience and the, the performance and the, the, the- Yeah, the, the proposal, uh, of the choreography or the piece, that it’s always so rich to have that then, yeah, that interaction, uh, and to see what the feedback is.
And even though I feel like I am somewhere else now in my life, but how, uh, at that moment, at least, it felt very relevant, um, both geographically, um, but also, uh, for that time. And that was for me very interesting to, to realize, and I’m very curious now- Yeah … uh, again a few years later, um, yeah, what that will give and what that will bring.
Chipo Chipaziwa: Yeah. I wanna go and further examine when you said that the Jezebel is a part of a trilogy- Yeah … ’cause I’ve been thinking about, you know, performance making and how that’s not always a linear process. Mm-hmm. So, like, when you started to create this tri- this trilogy, I wonder, like, is Dark Matter, a previous work that you presented in Push, a part of that?
I heard you mention Frank. Did you… Yeah, like, when you were working within this framework of a trilogy, did you create Jezebel first, or?
Cherish Menzo: Yes, Jezebel is the first work, and I did not know that I was- About to create a trilogy. It, it was just this first solo work, it, there was an importance of creating something myself, uh, which, with elements and references that I have from teenage years, as I mentioned before, and how they still, how I still relate to them now.
Um, and also, like, yeah, how I felt that they, they have their life outside of the black box, and what, what, what happens to them when I bring them inside of the black box, um, with my education as a dancer. Um, so that was the first sort of attempt. And then very quickly also feeling of like, ah, yeah, if I only stick into the forms and the images that we can collectively recognize, I feel I’m trapped.
I feel that there is only the stereotype that then will, um, manifest itself, and I don’t, do not want to create too much comfort also for the audience to just witness stereotypical images. Um, so that’s how this aspect of distortion and distorting form, sound, and diving into, to the chopped and screwed remix technique became also, uh, yeah, a tool to work with image-making.
Um, so it was just a work that I really desired to create with these questions. And then after creating Jezebel, um, I wanted to dive deeper into this image-making, what is representation in regards to the Black body, the African diasporic body, um- Mm-hmm … and how from that chapter that I investigated on still working with the nuances of what is collectively recognizable, how to maybe dwell more into opacity.
Um, and how this idea of dark matter could create a playground for this opacity. Um- Mm-hmm … one, in regards to, again, the image, uh, of the bodies on stage, but sound, sonography, light. Um, and so, yeah, the, this, this pull of distortion, uh, and yeah, wanting to understand of how can I work further on that made it that it felt very clear that Dark Matter would become a second chapter, uh, and that I felt that it would not be enough with the second chapter, but there has to be a third.
Chipo Chipaziwa: Yeah. Yeah. I wanna really talk about the pull of distort- distortion that you just mentioned. Yeah. ‘Cause I guess that, like, within the movement vocabulary of the work, you know, at times it felt seductive, other worldly, other worldly- Mm … um, almost as if you were applying, like, the chopped and screwed technique to your own performing body.
Um, and yeah, I was just wondering, like, were there any cultural significance to those movements, and did they evoke any different meanings to you?
Cherish Menzo: Hi. Yeah. Thank you for that question. Um, there’s definitely, uh, uh, specifically in, in Jezebel and in Dark Matter, the attempt to apply, uh, so the notions of chopped and screwed.
So the screwed meaning, um, the music being drastically slowed down. Um, the chopping, like cr- creating segment- segmentations. Um, working with repetition, scratching. So being almost in between spaces so that, uh, yeah, already this technique with- that is, um, implemented in music, uh, I felt can be an interesting tool to see how that can generate form, movement, um, and also a, an embodiment.
Because immediately it puts the brain in a space of like, ah, I need to navigate in, in how to work with the scratching of the body, uh, or- Mm … movement, I should say. Um, slowing down the temporality, stretching the tissue of time. How do we then relate to images, um, when we have the time to explore them and to dive deeper into the details of things and the, uh, mechanics of things, rather than being satisfied with s- a sort of recognizable image.
Um, so that for me became, yeah, a, an interesting tool to play with and un- and understanding of as, as an exercise and as a quest- Mm-hmm … uh, to create movement, but also how to approach the vocal aspects of the work. Um, and yeah, that, that created, uh, for me, uh, this distorted way of, of, of movement. Um, and when that is also in sound, and it’s not only just relating the movement directly to the sound.
So sometimes we would h- we would hear, or you will hear in Jezebel, uh, uh, a chopped and screwed, um, music segment. But I’m not going into the slow time. So also- Yeah … to play with these different temporalities at the same time, uh, for me, became, uh, a quest to dive into. Um, and I feel that it, yeah, it creates a sort of uncanniness and, and, uh, um, destabilizing way of, of, of performing at first.
Yeah. I like also that it, it, it does something to me and I, I have to put my teeth once again in- into it and deal with, with like this, this, this disability and how it also provides a, a space of tricking, uh, the one that is watching. Um- And to see how this, the recognizable or the familiar be- becomes twisted, distorted, deformed, and allows us to maybe question what we just take for granted in this familiarity, or also that it provides other ways or other angles of looking into these images or narrations
Chipo Chipaziwa: Yeah.
Because I will say, you know, when I was watching Jezebel, I couldn’t help but be like, “Okay, this performance, you’re bringing the audiences into quite an unstable, disorientating container.” Mm. Um, there’s this constant tension between authenticity and caricature. Mm-hmm. And I was just wondering, like, how do you go about navigating that line, like, through the development of the work, actually performing it, and even just the response?
Mm-hmm. What does that tension represent in the context of Black femininity, Black femininity- Mm-hmm … and the cul- and the larger cultural zeitgeist?
Cherish Menzo: Yeah. Um, I mean, in all the three the works, there is a constant, uh… It’s not a fight, but there is this negotiation of since I’ve, uh, I decided of like, “Ah, yeah, working with this tool of distorting images,” um, but what do you distort?
Because you always then come from something that you know or a fixed image and, and that you start to distort. Um, but this, yeah, this, um, uh, place of where one could fall into caricature and how to take care of that, or do I need to allow myself to fall into that and then understand what are the mechanisms of that in order to then dismantle or readjust that as well?
Mm-hmm. So yeah, I, I felt that in Jezebel it was the, the first time of understanding, yeah, those mechanisms and, and also really, like, how, um, they are produced to function in a way for us to believe certain narratives. Um, and, and as a performing, a performer, uh, how there’s a constant, uh, navigation and, uh, negotiation with that, with that aspect of, like, there’s, there are certain configurations that have been installed and that have been repeated so many times, that it’s how to detach, or should I detach?
Um, or how to look at them differently. Uh, can we look at them together, and what new negotiations come from that? Um, so yeah, in Jezebel it came a lot about the represe- the, the representation, not the representation, the repeating of certain movements. Does that then allow us to see another form, or does that then also allow us to feel like, “Oh, wow, yes, I feel a lot of comfort in it once, once it’s a short segment of, let’s say, seeing someone twerk”?
But when it’s too long, it starts to become something else. I see-
Chipo Chipaziwa: Yeah …
Cherish Menzo: that it ex- it’s exhausting the body. It’s not there anymore as a sort of desirable tool, um- So yeah, where is that sort of tipping point where image, uh, and the space of the stereotype, the caricature, uh, yeah, blur into something else or maybe not also?
Chipo Chipaziwa: I recall you mentioning, you know, like American culture being quite dominant. Like, I also spent my formative years outside of the States and, like, even… But still then, you know, MTV, all of that- Mm-hmm … was still quite present where I was currently living at the time, which was Geneva, Switzerland. Um- Mm. And I couldn’t help but, like, realize that when I was watching Jezebel, you know, I found myself thinking about popular iconography from either the ’90s, early aughts, or even to present day.
Like, I was thinking about Missy Elliott’s inflammable suit. Uh-huh. I forget the music video, but that silver one. Um- Mm-hmm … and then I’m gonna send this link to you. Um, at this year’s Bill- well, 2025’s Billboard Awards, Erykah Badu wore this outfit as well. So yeah, so these, like, references were just, like, coming up for me as I was work- watching- Yeah
the performance, and I was just, like, wondering, were you actually, like, thinking of said references when you were making this?
Cherish Menzo: With the suit, absolutely. Obviously. The
Chipo Chipaziwa: Missy Elliott? Yeah.
Cherish Menzo: Yeah. And for me, also important then Uh, what I didn’t mention be- before, um, with Jezebel, it was really diving into the elements, uh, within pop and hip hop culture, um, from the late ’90s and the early 2000s.
Um, and how that had a big, uh, influence or I would see, listen, uh, a lot to this music. And once again, I don’t know because I don’t have a television and I don’t quickly go so, uh, so quickly go on YouTube to watch video clips. But- Mm-hmm … yeah, having a television at home, um, and I felt that there was something so important about the video clips and how, uh, that brought importance to the songs.
Like, I felt that there was so much time, money invested, and I thought it was really beautiful. It, it was quite a specific era, I felt the late ’90s and early 2000s when it came to, like, pop and hip hop music, uh, video clips. Um, and so yeah, in regards of the references, like absolutely the inflatable suit, um, of Missy Elliott, but also working with different proportions before having…
I, I mean, spoiler, I don’t know, but it’s fine to share. But yeah, having this very tight latex short, uh, a mesh top, um, going from that very fleshy material, um, where one could already, uh, have to deal with these associations of fetishism, um, seeing a scantily dressed person and then blowing up the image. Uh, and what I find beautiful is also in regards of, like, when, when I move, uh, with the suit, it creates, like, completely different structures of the body as well.
Um, so these different images and references that, uh, for me were very present, um, during those teenage years. And what I find nice also to hear, uh, from the feedback from the audience that, yeah, it’s not a, a Shakespeare reference, but it’s something from the late ’90s, early 2000s and that, yeah, someone feel seen or someone can laugh or someone can sing along.
Uh, so yeah, to, to see how these references can exist and what they also do within this convention of the, of the black box or the theater, uh, was for me important to, to bring within. So yeah, these different elements, uh, were important to bring in. I could not bring a low rider car, um, so I decided to so I decided to bring a low rider bike.
Um- Yeah … so yeah, these very visual, uh, references from this time I wanted to create a universe with
Chipo Chipaziwa: Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me about Jezebel. I’m so looking forward to watching this show when it comes to Vancouver